Ferrum Corde by Richard Fox

Author:Richard Fox [Fox, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Triplane Press
Published: 2019-01-15T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Major Aiza of the Ibarran Legion shuffled his feet in the Nekara dust as Sergeant Jaso finished burying a sensor. A fog had rolled in, leaving the crucified as looming shadows all around them.

The rest of his team formed a loose perimeter as the sergeant worked.

“I don’t like this place,” Saunders said. “Ghosts are watching us.”

“We’ve done archaeotech grabs before,” Aiza said. “You’ve been in…unusual places before.”

“Not someplace haunted.” Saunders flicked a thumb against his gauss rifle’s safety.

“I swear these dead are watching us,” Maddinger said, motioning to a corpse hanging from an X. “How long they been here? Shouldn’t they have rotted away by now?”

“Jaso, are you done with painting the Sistine Chapel on that sensor by now?” Aiza asked.

“Motion detectors keep giving me an error message,” Jaso said. “There’s some sort of constant vibration throwing off the calibrations. Like we’re on top of buried utility cables or something.”

“The marshal wants a trip wire to tell him if anything moves out here, not excuses.” Aiza felt sweat run down the back of his neck. Even in temperature-controlled power armor, the stress was getting to him.

“There.” Jaso tapped his forearm screen. “Getting a reading from Ivey and Weber on the perimeter.”

“What’re you talking about?” Ivey said from behind Jaso. He jerked a thumb at Weber. “We’re right here.”

“Then…” Jaso did a double take at his screen and scrambled to his feet. He flipped his gauss rifle off his back and charged it to high power.

“Pull in, close perimeter,” Aiza said. He put his back to the rest of his team as they drew back to the sensor. He opened a channel. “Ground command, team seven has…I’ve got static. Weber, get me a link.”

The team commo specialist hit a button on his belt and an antenna extended out of the back of his armor.

A rattle rose through the fog like a snake’s warning.

“There!” Jaso pointed at a shadow as it flit between the crucified.

“Some sort of an animal?” Ivey asked.

“Sounds good to me,” Aiza said. “No first contact bull with an animal. You see it, you shoot—”

There was a rush of air like an arrow passing and a crack.

Weber let out a cry and Aiza turned to see him being dragged into the fog by a black stalk bristling with spikes. Weber vanished into the fog and his screams cut out with the crunch of breaking power armor.

“Light it up!” Aiza fired from the hip and sparks flew as gauss bullets hit a cross in the fog.

“Stop—stop moving.” Jaso looked at his forearm screen and shot a hand to his right. The legionnaires opened fire.

Aiza checked the compass built into his visor and set a bearing back to the Ark.

“Fall back,” he ordered. “Conserve ammo or we’ll—”

A shadow flashed across his eyes and blood splattered against his visor. He wiped it away and saw Ivey and Maddinger standing still, arms lowering their rifles.

“Move, move, legion!” Aiza nudged Ivey and his head fell off, blood spurted out of neatly severed arteries, and his corpse wobbled on its feet.

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